Two cannabis growers have been jailed after plants worth £1.3 million were found hidden inside an old BHS store.

Ajet Begu, 40, and Aryan Turya, 27, have been jailed after being caught red-handed inside a cannabis grow factory hidden in plain sight.

Police found it stashed inside a former BHS store on High Street in Slough, where hundreds of plants were kept.

The drug empire was dismantled after neighbourhood policing teams forced their way into the disused store on January 28 after identifying it as a cannabis factory.

They discovered more than 1,700 plants at different stages of maturity.

Begu and Turya were also found inside the factory and were arrested.

The plants could have yielded around 150 kg (23 stone 9 lbs) of drugs.

Their street value was estimated at £1,288,020 or £525,000 wholesale, according to a drug expert.

Investigating officer Detective Constable George Randell: ‘Following our hard work, Ajet Begu and Aryan Turya have been sentenced for their involvement in the production of more than £1m-worth of cannabis in the former BHS store in Slough. 

‘It was an incredible sight for my colleagues when they discovered the hundreds of cannabis plants in the factory that was spread over two floors, all hidden behind the seeming disused building. 

‘Our intervention no doubt had a significant impact on those producing and supplying cannabis in Slough and wider, but we are continuing to investigate the cannabis factory’s links to organised crime.’

Begu, of Palmers Green, London, and Turya, of no fixed abode but believed to live in London, both pleaded guilty to producing a controlled class B drug, namely cannabis, at Reading Magistrates’ Court.

Both men were sentenced to a year and two months in jail at Reading Crown Court on August 21.

It comes after a Royal Mail worker was caught after making more than £1.2 million from drugs he took from parcels.

Amjad Ali, 50, from Slough, made the money by diverting packages believed to contain cannabis to himself.

Police raided his home and a storage facility the logistics worker had used to run his drug empire.

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